A woman deposits garbage at a community refuse sorting point in Chaoyang district. New regulations on waste are on the way. [Photo/China Daily]

A plan to fine residents and companies that fail to sort their garbage has been scrapped after it failed to win public support.

The decision means that, as it stands, new waste management regulations being drafted by Beijing authorities do not include any punishment for those who do not comply.

Officials had planned to fine individual offenders up to 200 yuan, while organizations would face penalties of between 5,000 to 50,000 yuan.

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However, the move proved unpopular in an online survey by the municipal law office from Nov 18 to Dec 17 last year, with many comments suggesting that rewards are better than punishments.

"Most netizens were against the fine, so we accepted the suggestion and deleted it," Yang Hong, director of the law office's third division, told Beijing News.

Xie Xinyuan, solid waste program coordinator for Friends of Nature, an environmental NGO, told METRO he agrees with the decision, explaining it would be unfair to impose penalties when so many people still cannot meet the standard.

"We'd be stuck in a situation where most people are breaking the law, which makes the law less effective," he added.

Xie said his team carried out research in Hengxian, a town in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region that is 12 square kilometers and has a population of about 100,000. Thanks to a five-year government promotion, more than 60 percent of residents there sort their garbage, with 95 percent sorted correctly.

Hengxian's model would work well in large cities like Beijing, as the remote town has the same style of residential communities, he said.

"There are roughly 50 trash bins in each Beijing community, but only two in Hengxian's, one at each gate," said Xie. "This makes it easier to supervise the residents, and their garbage won't be accepted if they fail to sort."

The key problem with the draft regulations, however, is that they do not have any alternative measures to replace the fines, he said.

"If the fine is transferred to a higher management unit, such as property management companies, it may be more effective," added the environmentalist.

"Otherwise, we could refuse to collect unsorted garbage, like in Hengxian. There are many ways."

The latest draft of the refuse regulations will be discussed by the Beijing committee of the National People's Congress in May and September, and may be approved in November.

Meanwhile, classified trash bins are to be stationed in 1,200 more communities and villages this year, which will take the number of those included in the sorting promotion to 3,000, Mirror Evening News reported on Wednesday.

Officials in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong province, recently released a regulation on Feb 20 that threatens to fine residents 50 yuan if they fail to sort their trash. The regulation takes effect on April 1.